Electric Tricycle Project: Appropriate Mobility
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Electric Tricycle Project: Appropriate Mobility Final Design Report 10 May 2004 Daniel Dourte David Sandberg Tolu Ogundipe Abstract The goal of the Electric Tricycle Project is to bring increased mobility to disabled persons in Burkina Faso, West Africa. Presently, hand-powered tricycles are used by many of the disabled in this community, but some current users of the hand-powered tricycles do not have the physical strength or coordination to propel themselves on the tricycle with their arms and hands. The aim of this project is to add an electric power train and control system to the current hand-powered tricycle to provide tricycle users with improved levels of mobility, facilitating freedom in travel and contribution to the community. The design objectives required a simple and affordable design for the power train and controls, a design that needed to be reliable, sustainable, and functional. In response to the request from an SIM missionary at the Handicap Center in Mahadaga, Burkina Faso, Dokimoi Ergatai (DE) committed to designing and supplying a kit to add electric motor power to the current tricycle design, and we, David Sandberg, Tolulope Ogundipe, and Daniel Dourte partnered with DE in their commitment. Our project was advised by Dr. Donald Pratt and Mr. John Meyer. 2 Table of Contents Acknowledgements…………………………………………………………… P. 4 1 Introduction………………………………………………………………… P. 4 1.1 Description...……………………………………………………………… P. 6 1.2 Literature Review………………………………………………………… P. 7 1.3 Solution…………………………………………………………………… P. 10 2 Design Process……………………………………………………………… P. 13 3 Implementation…………………………………………………………….. P. 25 4 Schedule…………………………………………………………………….. P. 27 5 Budget………………………………………………………………………. P. 28 6 Conclusions…………………………………………………………………. P. 29 7 Recommendations for Future Work………………………………………. P. 30 Appendix……………………………………………………………...………. P. 31 3 Acknowledgements We would like to thank Mr. John Meyer for his patient advising and abundant manufacturing assistance and Dr. Donald Pratt for his very thorough advising. We thank Dokimoi Ergatai for partnering with us and providing much project support and information. We are grateful to Dan Elliott and Jim Liebundgut for consulting with us on motor controlling. Finally, we thank our fellow student Brian Wohltmann for his help in editing our presentation video. 1 Introduction Hand-powered tricycles are presently being used to provide mobility for disabled persons in a rural community in Mahadaga, Burkina Faso. Below is a photograph of a boy in Mahadaga on his hand-powered tricycle. The map on the right shows the location of Burkina Faso (in green). With this project we designed and manufactured a system to convert the hand- powered tricycle to an electric motor powered version. We essentially created an affordable, rugged electric wheelchair for use in a developing country. We have worked to make our design appropriate to the culture where it will be used. This meant designing 4 for the use of locally available parts and manufacturing capabilities. The result is a system that can be almost entirely replicated, with the exception of the motor and motor controller, with familiar parts, tools, and processes. Using the hand-powered tricycle as the basis for our design made the Electric Tricycle more of an appropriate technology because it uses a familiar, locally available platform as a starting point. In Mahadaga there are currently four potential users of the Electric Tricycle. Disease or old age has left these members of the community dependent on others for their mobility. Though they own hand-powered tricycles, they are being used like conventional wheelchairs with the motive force coming from a person pushing from behind. Our first user is named Yempabou. He is a 12 year old boy from Burkina Faso who has cerebral palsy. Yempabou is pictured below: Cerebral Palsy limits his dexterity and severely limits the used of his lower limbs. Currently, he is learning to use a modified type of hand-powered tricycle, but has not 5 been able to power himself consistently. The Electric Tricycle should enable Yempabou, and others in the future, to be independently mobile. Dokimoi Ergatai, a Messiah College service-learning organization that works to improve living conditions for people in developing nations, was an important resource in this project. DE is responsible for the origin of the project, through their partnership with those in the community in Mahadaga, and much of the information gathering that was required to complete the project. 1.1 Description The design of the Electric Tricycle is adaptable to the current hand-powered tricycles with little modification. The design consists of an electric motor, a drive system, motor and steering controls, and a power supply. See picture below for design schematic: An electric motor was chosen because high fuel costs prohibited the use of a combustion engine and because of the availability of electricity in Mahadaga. A solar array that 6 provides electricity for the Handicap Center provides the ideal source of electricity for battery recharging. The first aspect of our design that was addressed was the drive system or means of power transmission. Power must be transmitted from the electric motor to a rear wheel of the tricycle. Second, a method of motor control was decided on. The controls for motor speed and braking were incorporated into a simple mechanical joystick to facilitate operation by users with limited dexterity. The hand-power system was replaced with a steering system that disables the hand-power capability of the tricycle. Third, power is supplied to the motor by a battery pack. All the above components (motor, transmission, controls, batteries) were designed to be able to be installed on the existing hand-powered tricycles. Everything necessary to convert a hand-powered tricycle to the Electric Tricycle is simple to install, and the conversion is reversible. Our objectives for the project are as follows, in order of decreasing priority: · Be appropriate for use and replication in Mahadaga, Burkina Faso · Be able to climb a 10% grade · Limit top speed to 7 mph · Have a power supply that will provide a range of 8 miles at maximum speed · Total cost of power train and controls and power supply will not exceed $300 1.2 Literature Review Research was done online as well as in magazine articles in search of presently available solutions to our problem. We found many products that were available for 7 purchase, but they didn’t entirely meet the requirements of our unique problem. The problem has been solved, and in many different ways, but what we found, or rather didn’t find, was a solution to our problem that meets our specific needs of affordability and appropriateness. The advantage of finding these solutions is that we can see what works, what has been tried, and what’s available on the market. Then we can more effectively consider how to design a similar product that meets our unique needs. www.kinetics.org.uk/html/the_motor.html is a website that has Heinzmann motors, which are a type of hub motor (Picture 1). This option is quite an expensive option. It costs over a $1000 and is available in England. Hub motors, although a very good design option, may not be the appropriate technology option that we’re looking for. Once the hub motor breaks or needs some maintenance, it becomes useless to the local people. It is a self contained system, but self contained also means more complicated technology as well. Teftec Mobility (http://www.teftec.com/index.asp0) is a company that produces electric wheelchairs, which is essentially what we’re doing. Their more basic and cheapest model is the AlphaTrac and costs $12,495 (Picture 2). This isn’t out of the typical electric wheelchair price range which is about $5,000 to $20,000. The amount of engineering that goes into making this machine far surpasses what will go into our Electric Wheelchair. This is a great option and is state of the art, but we believe that we’re approaching this art from a much different perspective with very different goals than the typical electric wheelchair manufacturer. Picture 3 shows different ways, very expensive ways, of hand powering a tricycle. These options may or may not allow for a better design for attaching an electric motor to. 8 We decided that although these are great designs, their purpose was for recreation and would not suit the needs of the people that we are designing the electric kit for. Their low position doesn’t allow a good seating position for a table or clearance enough for the conditions of the area. Literature Review Pictures: Picture 1: Heinzmann Hub motor Picture 2: AlphaTrac (John Deere inspired color configuration, more ‘off road’) Pictures 3: These are different options for hand powered operation of a tricycle. 9 1.3 Solution We began the design project with three drive options for transmitting power from the electric motor to the drive wheel. First, a hub motor was considered. The hub motor incorporated the motor and transmission into the hub of the wheel. See picture: This design was very simple and offered the advantage of a sealed, self-contained drive system, but it is the most expensive and least appropriate of the three options. Deciding against the hub motor, we pursued a friction drive system in which torque is transmitted from the motor to the wheel by direct contact between a drive roller on the motor and the tire of the tricycle. See picture: 10 The main advantage of the friction drive system is that it is capable of very simply providing the large speed reduction because of the difference in diameters of the drive roller on the motor and the wheel of the tricycle. This option was extensively prototyped, and different drive roller sizes and materials were tested, however, we decided against this option because of its limitations on torque transmission.